“A lot of them won’t make it,” she said softly.

“They’ll stand a better chance in the Fangs than here,” he said with equal quiet. They were still his people, had still shown him kindness, even when his own father had not. “I’ll see to it that my father sends some of the soldiers who are too old to fight with them—they’ll remember the way.”

“I know I’m nothing more than the rabble,” Yrene said, and Chaol snickered, “but those who do choose to stay, who are let into the keep … Perhaps while we wait for our own forces, I could help find room for them. Supplies. See if there are any healers among them who might have access to the herbs and ingredients we need. Get bandages ready.”

He nodded, pride filling his chest to the point of pain. A lady. If not by blood, then by nobility of character. His wife was more of a lady than any other he’d met, in any court.

“Then let us prepare for war, husband,” Yrene said, sorrow and dread filling her eyes.

And it was the sight of that kernel of fear, not for herself but what they were undoubtedly soon to take part in, to witness, that had him sweeping her into his arms and laying her upon the bed. “War can wait until morning,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

Dawn broke, and the ruks arrived.

So many ruks they blotted out the watery sun, the boom of wings and rustle of feathers filling the skies.

People cried out this time, their voices a herald of the screams to come when that army reached their doorstep.

On the plain before the southern side of the keep, flowing to the lake edge itself, the ruks settled. It had long been kept clear of settlement, the flat expanse riddled with hot springs and prone to annual flooding, though a few stubborn farmers still tried to coax crops from the hard soil.

It had once been part of the lake itself, before the Western Falls tucked into the Fangs had been dammed up, their roaring waters quieted to a trickle that fed the lake. For centuries, Chaol’s ancestors had debated breaking the dam, letting that raging river run free once more, now that their ancient forges had given way to a few water-powered mills that could easily be moved elsewhere.

Yet the destruction breaking that dam would cause, even if they gathered every water-wielder in the realm to control the flow, would be catastrophic. The entire plain would flood in a matter of minutes, some of the city being swept away as well. The waters would barrel down from the mountains, destroying everything in their path in a mighty wave that would flow to Oakwald itself. The lowest levels of the keep, the gate that opened onto the plain, would be wholly submerged.

So the dam had stayed, and the grassy plain with it.

The ruks settled themselves in neat rows, and Chaol and Yrene watched from the battlements, other sentries breaking from their posts to join them, as the riders began setting up camp with whatever supplies their mounts had carried. The healers would be brought up later, though a few might remain down in their camp until Morath’s legion arrived.

Two dark shapes soared overhead, and the sentries fell back to their posts as Nesryn and Sartaq landed on the battlement wall, a small falcon alighting beside the former’s ruk. Falkan Ennar, then.

Nesryn leaped off her ruk in an easy movement, her face grave as any pocket of Hellas’s realm. “Morath is three days away, possibly four,” she said breathlessly.

Sartaq came up behind her, the ruks needing no hitching post. “We kept high overhead, out of sight, but Falkan was able to get closer.” The shifter remained in falcon form by Salkhi.

Yrene stepped forward. “What did you see?”

Nesryn shook her head, her normally golden-brown skin bloodless. “Valg and men, mostly. But they all look fast—vicious.”

Chaol reined in his grimace. “No sign of the witches?”

“None,” Sartaq said, running a hand over his braided hair. “Though they might be waiting to sweep down from the Ferian Gap when the army arrives here.”

“Let’s pray they don’t,” Yrene said, surveying the ruks in the valley below.

A thousand ruks. It had seemed like a gift from the gods, seemed like an impossibly large number. And yet seeing them assembled on the plain …

Even the mighty birds might be swept away in the tide of battle.

CHAPTER 20

“Do you know the story of the queen who walked through worlds?”

Seated on the mossy carpet of an ancient glen, one hand toying with the small white flowers strewn across it, Aelin shook her head.

In the towering oaks that formed a lattice over the clearing, small stars blinked and shimmered, as if they’d been snared by the branches themselves. Beyond them, bathing the forest with light bright enough to see by, a full moon had risen. All around them, faint, lilting singing floated on the warm summer air.

“It is a sad story,” her aunt said, one corner of her red-painted mouth curling upward as she leaned back on her seat carved into a granite boulder. Her usual place, while they had these lessons, these long, peaceful chats deep into the balmy summer nights. “And an old one.”

Aelin lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t I a little old for faerie stories?” She’d indeed just celebrated her twentieth birthday three days ago, in another clearing not too far from here. Half of Doranelle had come, it had seemed, and yet her mate had found a way to sneak her from the revelry. All the way to a secluded pool in the forest’s heart. Her face still warmed to think of that moonlit swim, what Rowan had made her feel, how he’d worshipped her in the sun-warmed water.

Mate. The word was still a surprise. As it had been to arrive here at spring’s end and see him beside her aunt’s throne and simply know. And in the months since, their courting … Aelin indeed blushed at the thought of it. What they’d done in that forest pool had been the culmination of those months. And an unleashing. The mating marks on her neck—and on Rowan’s—proved it. She would not be returning to Terrasen alone when autumn arrived.

“No one is too old for faerie stories,” her aunt said, faint smile growing. “And as you are part faerie yourself, I would think you’d have some interest in them.”

Aelin smiled back, bowing her head. “Fair enough, Aunt.”

Aunt wasn’t entirely accurate, not with generations and millennia separating them, but it was the only thing the queen had suggested Aelin call her.

Maeve settled further into her seat. “Long ago, when the world was new, when there were no human kingdoms, when no wars had marred the earth, a young queen was born.”

Aelin folded her legs beneath her, angling her head.

“She did not know she was a queen. Amongst her people, power was not inherited, but simply born. And as she grew, her strength rose with her. She found the land she dwelled in to be too small for that power. Too dark and cold and grim. She had gifts similar to many wielded by her kind, but she had been given more, her power a sharper, more intricate weapon—enough that she was different. Her people saw that power and bowed to it, and she ruled them.

“Word spread of her gifts, and three kings came to seek her hand. To form an alliance between their throne and the one she had built for herself, small as it might have been. For a time, she thought it would be the newness, the challenge that she had always craved. The three kings were brothers, each mighty in his own right, their power vast and terrifying. She picked the eldest among them, not for any particular skill or grace, but for his countless libraries. What she might learn in his lands, what she might do with her power … It was that knowledge she craved, not the king himself.”